The Chestnut Hill College athletics Department honored the seniors on the women's and men's tennis programs Saturday morning prior to the start of the men's tennis team's final regular season match of the season, a match that the Griffins dropped to nationally ranked Queens college (N.Y.)  5-2 at the CHC Tennis Courts in Philadelphia.

Four seniors, one on the women's team and three on the men's were presented plaques from the department by Athletics Director Jesse Balcer as Head Coach Eric Gibson said a few words about each athlete.  The seniors recognized were women's tennis player Gianna Vassalluzzo (Newtown, Pa.) and men's tennis players Joseph Gregory Kvint (Huntington Valley, Pa.), Mark Gladkyy (Vineland, N.J.) and Tom Pitchley (London, England).

As for the match itself, the Griffins won two of the three doubles contests to take an early lead but struggled as the singles matches progressed as the Knights captured five of the six contests to win the match.

In doubles, the Knights struck first as Kareem Rashad and Lucas Demuth defeated Noah Cutting (Bury St. Edmunds, England) and Gladkyy 6-4 at #2 doubles.  At #3 doubles it looked as though the Knights would clinch the doubles point with a win as they were leading the march 5-2, but the team of Joao Sousa (Figueroa de Foz, Portugal) and Domagoj Dugandzic (Stuttgart, Germany) came back and won the next five games in the match to earn a 7-5 win over Tim Ostheimer and Mariano Bibiloni, leaving it up to the #1 doubles match to decide the doubles point winner.

Kvint and Pitchley trailed in the match 6-5 when they forced a tiebreaker after evening up the score at 6-6.  The duo jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the tiebreaker only to see Queen's doubles team of Moritz Borges and Omar El Shehawey come back and take a one point lead.  As the tiebreaker progressed neither team could pull away to gain the two point advantage and win by two with both team's holding a one-point lead at times.   Queens led 10-9 before Pitchley and Kvint scored the final three points to take the tiebreaker 12-10 and the match, giving the Griffins an early 1-0 lead.

The lead was short-lived as the Knights scored wins at #1, #6 and #4 singles to take a 3-1 lead in the match.  Cutting then won his match over Bibiloni at #2 singles, 6-2, 6-4 before the Knights won the final two matches at #5 and #3 singles to earn the 5-2 win.

The Chestnut Hill Men's Tennis team begins post-season play on Tuesday when as the #2 seed in the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference Tournament, host #3 seed Post University at the CHC Tennis Courts.  First serve is set for 2:00 p.m.